Foreshadowing In The Lake Of The Woods

Throughout the story “In the Lake of the Woods”, there are footnotes every few chapters. In the footnotes, different people all speak on whatever is currently happening in the book at different points in time. Each footnote is presented as a piece of evidence which include stories from some of the people who knew both Kathy and John. In the footnotes, the narrator is speaks in the first person, which implies that he, like the main character, fought in Vietnam. The footnotes add legitimacy to what is being told in the story, instead of destabilizing it. They also give the story a new layer because they skip time periods ranging from when he was a boy, to the war, and to his current situation. The reason that the footnotes work is because, instead of coming out of nowhere, the facts being presented, are almost from the author himself so it is not just a bunch of random information thrown at the reader all at once. The footnotes throughout the story are there to help shed light on current or past

The foreshadowing in the footnotes is not blatantly clear upon first glance. By rereading and looking closely at the text, the reader can see subtle hints of foreshadowing, “To study psychological trauma is to come face to face with both human vulnerability in the natural world and with the capacity for evil in human nature” (In the Lake of the Woods 26). to say the Wade is evil, purely is speculation, but to say that studying psychological trauma can lead to evil is a possibility. In the Lake of the Woods, the reader knows that he was involved in the war and that he does have some psychological problems, and based upon what the sheriff's think, he is in question for being evil. Dropping hints and clues throughout the footnotes leaves the reader to formulate their own opinion and make judgments based on how they view the